BTRC, BTCL at loggerheads over operational authority of Bangla Domain Name

The telecom regulator and the state-owned telecom company are at loggerheads over the operational authority of the newly approved "Bangla Domain Name" service.

The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) is in favour of handing over the administration of the service to private sector while Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL) is in race to have its operational responsibility.

Bangladesh got approval of Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) in Bangla from Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) recently. Through the system, any one from anywhere will be able to register for website domain in Bengali language.

BTRC chairman Zia Ahmed told the FE on Wednesday that "We suggested the government to give the operational responsibility to private sector for better service as huge websites will be opened under the domain name".

He said the commission already submitted a paper regarding this issue to the parliamentary standing committee on telecom and requested them to form a national committee for domain administration.

However, BTCL wants to control the service, he added referring to parliamentary committee's recommendation.

BTRC chairman said people will get the service after completion of the structural work. "Now we are working for system development".

He said the administrative body will work as controller of 'data transfer'.

The comment of BTCL managing director could not be available despite repeated efforts.

According to the BTRC, the Bengali people will be beneficiaries of this initiative of Bangla enable domain hosting system in the country. Different countries of the world introduced the system in their respective language to disseminate information easily to the common people.

Telecom authority started discussion in 2010 to get approval of Bangla IDN Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) through ICANN, which is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers.